National Popular Vote compact

The Constitution provides a built-in mechanism for fixing the shortcomings of the current system of electing the president.

The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the president is that four out of five states, and four out of five Americans, are politically irrelevant in presidential campaigns. After being nominated in 2012, President Obama conducted campaign events in just eight states, and Governor Romney did so in only ten. Just ten states received 98 percent of the $940 million spent on advertising by the two campaigns and their supporters.

These problems are caused by state winner-take-all statutes (that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes in each separate state). Because of these state winner-take-all statutes, presidential candidates have no reason to pay attention to the concerns of voters in states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. The common feature of the ten states that received attention in the 2012 presidential campaign was that the eventual winner received 53 percent or less of the state’s vote -- that is, they were closely divided “battleground” states.